On Counseling

(Note: This post originates from my own experience--it's written as advice I wish someone had given me before I started counseling. I fully acknowledge there are other ways counselors can be helpful, especially considering how different every situation is. In other words, take what you can and feel free to disagree.)

I've tried counseling through LDS Family Services twice--once after I first confessed to my wife four years ago, and the second time starting almost a month ago. The first time lasted about a month and a half, and didn't really end with me having a burning desire to start up again any time soon. Hence the over-three-and-a-half-year hiatus. Now I'm much more enthusiastic about it and think I'm getting much more out of it. Still, I wish I would have known what I know now about counseling when I first started (plus I want to do some thinking about the difference between the two times), so that's usually enough reason to do a blog post about it. Here are some things I would tell myself:

"Work to find the right counselor."

The first thing I wish I knew was that not all counselors are created equal. Or rather, not all counselors are right for me--the training, the personality, and the situation all need to be right. My thinking for the first go around was I'm messed up and I need counseling--it doesn't matter who they assign me. This time I approached it having heard about a specific counselor from four or five separate sources, all telling me he was fantastic at working with recovering sex addicts and their wives. When I set up the appointment and they told me he wasn't available, this time I thought I don't care if it takes two months for his schedule to open up--counseling is only as good as the counselor. 

My first version of this advice was "wait until you find the right counselor," but I don't think that's quite right--rather than just waiting, I wish I had talked with recovering addicts, searched websites, made phone calls until I found out more. Not only did I miss the opportunity to get a better counselor, but I also missed the opportunity to connect with recovered addicts in the process. There are enough problems with recovery--worrying about whether or not your counselor knows what he/she is talking about shouldn't be one of them.

"Prepare before starting counseling."

Similarly, the original version of this advice was simply "wait until the time is right," but that provides justification for NEVER doing counseling. Something my counselor asked me this time made me confident I was doing it better this time (and that he's the right guy): he asked what I expected to get out of counseling with him. I don't think I could have answered that the first time--The first time I did counseling I think I was pretty much just hoping to be cured. Somehow. A plumber fixes broken pipes, right? So isn't a counselor just a fixer of broken people? Ah...no. When my current counselor asked me that question I was able to be pretty specific about my recent relapses and my desire to understand addiction, myself, and recovery better. I had studied enough to know what I didn't know.

This piece of advice isn't just because I was strapped for cash. I feel like counseling isn't most helpful as a means of motivation when first starting recovery...it's more helpful as a second-opinion, course-correction type of thing. If I could do it again, I would tell myself, "throw yourself into the twelve step programs and reading recovery material (especially the Sexaholics Anonymous white book and other material), then do counseling when things aren't working out and you can't figure out why." I'm afraid simply going to the counselor is a comfortable way to not really work on recovery but to tell yourself you are. Unfortunately that's how it worked for me, and it allowed me to set myself back 3 years in my recovery.

"Don't think of counseling as a silver bullet."

Counseling shouldn't be the only tool--or even the main tool--in your recovery utility belt. Your goal through counseling isn't to become recovered...your goal is to become your own counselor. That includes being able to diagnose weaknesses, connect with recovery resources, and know the right questions to ask. Not only is your counselor not going to be able to be a long-term solution (do you really want to pay $75-100 per week for the rest of your life?), but your counselor isn't going to be helpful more than once a week. He/she relies on YOU to follow through the rest of the time.When you need help during the week, the counselor isn't going to be there in the same way a diverse support network is going to be.

That said, if it's worth going to a counselor, it's worth following his/her advice...even if it doesn't make sense to you. I remember when I went to my first counselor, he told me about ARP group meetings. He told me something like "it helps some people to go; you should consider it if you want to." I wish he would have put it in stronger terms (like, "I strongly encourage you to go--there are those who believe recovery isn't possible without participating in a 12-step support group.") Still, if I had been more obedient and willing to work all available resources, I'd probably be years ahead in my recovery. I treated counseling as the only thing I needed to do...so much so that I didn't bother even doing it. 

All this I believe in theory, but I still have some trouble making the most out of my visits with my counselor. Now that I know so much more about addiction and recovery I have a bit of a hard time following through...mainly because I'm already kind of doing the things he asks. He gave me a calendar with things to do every day, and I've struggled keeping up with marking it. However, I've been pretty good at doing the things it mentions that I hadn't been doing before (like my goal to grade something every day, which has been a struggle for me in the past). This week he assigned me to rewrite my personal inventory, which I'm struggling with a bit. I've already rewritten it a few times already, and (I'm sure a lot of you know) it's a tough document to motivate oneself to work on anyway.

I look forward to finding and becoming more efficient in my use of recovery tools. I wish I had known years ago what I know now, but I hope that means that years from now I'll look back with gratitude that I kept working on my approach to recovery.

Good in Parts

I wanted to write a post about something my counselor told me and my wife this week. He calls it "viewing ourselves in parts."

The basic idea is that Satan loves it when we think in black and whites. It's either "I'm worthless. No one is as messed up as I am. I'm unfixable" or it's "I'm fine. We could easily fill the conference center with people who struggle with this issue. No problems here."

The truth is that we each are made of countless parts, some of which are contradictory. There's a part of me that's humble. There's a part of me that's prideful. There's a part of me that's addicted to pornography. A part of me that loves my wife and children. A part that is service oriented. Part that's selfish. Wise. Guilty. Confident. And on and on.

The story of the old cherokee grandfather telling his grandson about two wolves battling inside him is applicable here. Except instead of just two wolves, there are dozens, of every color, shape, and disposition. We sometimes feel like our addiction erases (or at least trumps) every positive aspect of our past. The truth is that there are parts of us that are still worthy, valorous, and spiritual. But they've grown comparatively smaller because we've been more preoccupied feeding the selfish, the dirty, and the corrupt.

One final thought. Sometimes I don't work on feeding the best parts of me because I fall into all-or-nothing thinking. I think, "if I can't read more than five minutes in the scriptures every day, it's not worth it." I got to thinking, though, how much is five minutes a day? Let's say in five minutes I can read one page in the scriptures. If I would have spent that five minutes over the 17 years of my addiction, I would have read the standard works two and a half times (The Bible--1590 pgs + The Book of Mormon--531 + The Doctrine and Covenants--294 + Pearl of Great Price--61 = 2,476 pages; 6,205 days). 

Or, if I would have spent five minutes a day reading general conference talks (assuming I can get through two a week), I would have been able to read every single general conference talk since 1971--including from the women's meetings/Welfare sessions...with a few hundred left over (I didn't count every one, but I randomly sampled this many--41/36/32/35/38/36/38/38/37 with an average adding to about 1,540. 1,768 bi-weekly talks over 17 years). Imagine if I'd spent ten minutes a day and done both the scriptures and the general conference talks! How would my life look if I had read the scriptures two and a half times and studied every conference talk available on the church's website? I suspect if each day I could make a slight, even imperceptibly minuscule effort to improve any part of me, over the long term there would be monumental changes.

It's easier to give up trying to improve ourselves because Satan tells us we don't need it (cuz we're so awesome) or it won't help (cuz we're so messed up). But we need to trust that God--who knows us perfectly, including our  messed up parts and our amazing parts--loves us and sent his son to atone for us because we can change and are inherently of great worth.

Is Pornography Addiction a Disease?

I think we can all agree that Ebola is a disease. It has a variety of violent symptoms, it is clearly communicable, it's universally recognized as one, etc. A disease is something that spreads by sneezing in someone's face, right? Is calling pornography addiction a disease a way to minimize it? As if we're saying, "Satan coughed in my face and I contracted a pornography addiction." Or is calling it a disease a helpful way of thinking about this widely misunderstood topic, including by addicts and their loved ones? Let's look at the definition, so see if we can get a better sense of what a disease is:

a disordered or incorrectly functioning organ, part, structure, or system of the body resulting from the effect of genetic or developmental errors, infection, poisons, nutritional deficiency or imbalance, toxicity, or unfavorable environmental factors

So "infection" is only a small part of what causes a disease. "Poisons" and "toxicity"--according to this definition--both can be factors causing the "disordered or incorrectly functioning" body part. Another definition is more general: "Illness or sickness in general." In this extremely lenient definition, almost any unfavorable, abnormal body function could be considered a disease.

So there's no help in the definition of "disease" that would disqualify addiction. Those who recognize pornography as the driving component of their addiction would probably call it a poison or a toxin. They would certainly conclude their inability to stop was a sign of incorrect function. However, there are many people who don't view addiction this way. As I talked about in a previous post, there is a sizable part of the population who view sexual deviants as those who merely possess a high sex drive and a few unreasonable behavioral expectations. The only thing they would say is abnormal about "pornography addiction" are those who want to fight it.

Back to the dictionary: more interesting than its current use is the root origins. In 14th Century Old French, "disease" was "dis" (without, away) + "aise" (ease). It was used to mean "discomfort, inconvenience." Other words associated with it include  "lack,want; discomfort, distress; trouble, misfortune." I find this so fascinating not because I consider addiction to be a discomfort and an inconvenience, but because I find that discomfort, lacking, trouble, etc to be the root cause of it. It's because of my inability to cope with discomforts and wants that I self-medicate.

The problem I have with calling addiction a disease is that it sounds like we're throwing up our hands--"It's totally not my fault that I contracted it, and there's nothing I can do about it." I think this attitude comes because almost always someone who contracts a disease isn't really at fault. Still, a lot of the Ebola news going on recently (whether or not you think it's ridiculous hype) focuses on people who have put themselves at risk and how those decisions affect them and everyone they come in contact with. There's a focus on agency and choice there that I think is very applicable to this discussion.

If we say that pornography addiction is a disease, I think we need to be very clear what brought this disease on--choices to repeatedly put oneself at risk--and what causes it to continue--more choices to not seek treatment or to not follow the "doctor's orders."

One more factor. There is a growing body of research that indicates that pornography addiction is a real thing that manifests itself physically...in changes in the addict's brain. So regardless of where it came from or what it will take to overcome it, the impairment is real and will not just go away. Andrew from rowboat and marbles compares it to diabetes--asking someone "why don't you just stop looking at pornography already?" is like asking someone with diabetes "why don't you just stop having diabetes already?" That's about as helpful as this psychiatrist (Bob Newhart):


I'm going to say yes, pornography addiction is a disease. It's NOT a disease like the Ebola that a person unknowingly contracts who's next to a person with a fever on an airplane. It IS a disease like the Ebola that a person contracts who intentionally travels to an area, choosing to put themselves at risk (though the reasoning for the analogy--selflessly helping Ebola patients--is clearly different than for pornography addiction--selfishly pursuing pleasure). It's a disease that the sufferer contracted and repeatedly aggravated while putting themselves at risk, whether or not they knew the extent of the danger. It's a disease that is extremely difficult to treat, and has a physical component that won't go away just through will power and positive thinking. But pornography addiction is a disease that can be treated--through following the example of those who have already beaten it into remission, taking advantage of the tools provided through organizations like the Addiction Recovery Program/Sexaholics Anonymous, and by turning to the Master Physician.

Three Pillars of Recovery

So I'm still struggling, even though I've made great strides in building up my support network. It's taken me a while to come up with a theory to explain why reliance on others isn't enough--I've decided that successful recovery requires more than any one type of action. In fact, (caveat: this is "Recovery According to Robert") I believe recovery can be effectively described as having three key factors, and if any one is lacking the whole thing comes tumbling down eventually.

Safeguards
This is the area where I'm currently lacking. This was the area that I started working on (by getting rid of my smart phone) before I even confessed to my wife. And now that I think of it, this was the area that I was having a lot of success controlling when I was doing the best in my recovery.

What I mean by "safeguards" are those recovery actions that make it harder for the addict to come into contact with triggering material. So getting rid of my smart phone was a huge thing. Setting up a filter on the computer (which is more of an accountability thing, since it sends an update email to my wife instead of stopping me from accessing anything), getting rid of triggering media (whether directly triggering or only closely connected with it--like video games for me), etc. These are those kinds of things that I will set up when I'm in recovery because I don't even want the temptation later on when my sanity wanes.

For example, I've struggled recently with getting sucked into video game news online, which impacts the work I get done, which makes me feel guilty, stressed, and more prone to act out. SO, I'm planning on not even bringing my laptop on campus for the foreseeable future--there are computers on campus that I can use, and I won't even have to face the decision.

Accountability
Safeguards are only good if you have a way of enforcing them. And, for me, if I'm the only one who knows about the safeguard, that means the only thing that's actually keeping me from going down the path to acting out is me, and maybe a few seconds to get around whatever barrier I've put in my way. And that's not effective. This is where a support network comes in. When I have a group of people who I'm responsible to contact and update about my recovery, that means it's not just me anymore.

A support network requires work to set up (exchanging phone numbers with recovery folk, getting comfortable contacting them, setting up counseling, reporting to bishop, talking with friends/spouse, etc.), but when I'm in the habit of reaching out, my support people become my safety net to catch me when I start to fall.

Recently, I've made progress in this area. My problem is actually reaching out to my support folks when I'm in trouble. My desire to not bug people and my dislike of phones in general shouldn't be an excuse, but it has been. Also, I'm working on setting up counseling. Like, literally present tense--as I write this sentence I'm on hold with family services setting up an appointment. Ok, appointment set. See, writing this post (and having a desire to not write in the future tense about counseling) already has had a positive effect.

Motivation
This is a tricky one, but this much I'm sure of: all the safeguards (short of complete immobility, 24/7) and all the accountability in the world won't count for anything if I'm not committed to recovery. How does one build motivation for recovery, though? ...asked every spouse of an addict, ever. One big thing is hitting rock bottom (so setting and holding firm to boundaries makes the reality of the addiction sink in, potentially increasing motivation). Another is the effects of the other two things I've mentioned--having effective safeguards and being accountable/not wanting to let people down is a big motivator. But perhaps the best thing of all is seeing recovery in action, which is why actively attending recovery groups is such a huge thing.

Recognizing and owning the truth about oneself is probably at the heart of finding motivation. Breaking down the lies I tell myself--through interacting with others or journal writing or whatever--is part of what defines "hitting rock bottom" for me. 

My scripture study is the biggest thing I can do here. It's been really helpful to link my inventory to specific scriptures. Still, this is a subject I probably will write on in the future, since I sense motivation is more enigmatic than I'm representing it here.

It often feels like I'm teetering on two legs of a stool, trying to keep from tumbling down. One firm gust of wind can send me over unless I find a way to get all the legs firmly on solid ground. Still, I'm confident it will be worth it, even if it takes more--and smarter--work to make recovery happen.

A Stellar Analogy

Discovery.com

Our sun fuses 655 million tons of hydrogen into 650 million tons of helium every second. And while 655 million tons seems like a lot, it's barely a fraction of the total mass of the sun. This process has been going on uninterrupted for a very long time, and will continue to go on for several billion years until the sun converts so much hydrogen into helium that there's a fuel crisis. What happens when the increasing amount of helium in the sun's core interrupts the fusion process is the subject of this post and an analogy to help illustrate the relationship between what we do and who we are.

But first, a few caveats: I'm not an astronomer, and I don't really know these complicated systems that well. I undoubtedly will get things wrong. Still, I'm not concerned with the numerous ways stars develop and can end--this is one possible way that I find interesting and applicable. Also, I recognize that there are a number of significant flaws in this analogy. Try to take what you can from it and ignore the illogical parts.

Ok, let me switch from talking about our sun to a much larger star, which has slightly different rules/outcomes. After the helium chokes the hydrogen fusion in the core, the fusion process shifts to a shell around the core. The fusing shell of hydrogen compresses, heats, and ignites the helium in the center to start its own fusion process. The helium in the core fuses into carbon, which eventually collects enough to choke the helium fusion at the core, which creates a second shell around the core. So the outside of the star is a shell of hydrogen fusion, inside of which is a shell of helium fusion, inside of which is a core of fusing carbon. You can probably see where this is headed. The carbon creates neon, which creates oxygen, which creates magnesium (or silicon?), which creates iron (this is a gross simplification of a very complex and poorly understood process, but whatever). Here's an illustration from wikipedia:

The star has always fought a battle, with gravity pushing in and internal pressure from fusion pushing out. At this point the increasingly ineffective substances nearer the core (iron as a fuel is about as "inefficient as stones in a fireplace") don't provide the pressure to keep the gravity at bay. Without the outward pressure of fusion, the star collapses in on itself. Depending on its size, it will either completely collapse (forming a black hole) or it will collapse then ignite, exploding much of its fuel at once in a supernova. Either way, the star is no more.

Ok, analogy time. We are the stars. And while actual stars burn substances that they've had all along, we get to choose the type of substances that we put into our system. Hydrogen is efficient--it stands for healthy gospel living: selflessly helping others, working to understand ourselves and our place in God's plan, etc.--anything healthy, good, praiseworthy, or virtuous. The other elements stand for other, increasingly less noble actions. Helium might be a hobby that doesn't help further your long-term goals, carbon might be an off-color Youtube video, neon might be a dependence on sugar, etc. Iron and its ilk are the really destructive habits--pornography, drugs, etc. Once these are clogging our life, a major breakdown is inevitable. 

We might have a portion of things we do that aren't conducive to healthy living, and we tell ourselves it doesn't pose a huge problem. Like the sun right now--it has 25% helium, but that doesn't mess with its core process. Similarly, we might feel like we can spend time on good things--instead of better or best things--and it won't affect us. Eventually, if we're not careful, we find a shift in our habits. Instead of being excited about daily prayer and scripture study, we are more pumped about watching uplifting movies and reading happy novels. After a while the movies aren't quite as uplifting and the novels aren't quite as happy. Each shift of action provides less outward force to overcome the pressures we face. At some point we don't "have the energy" to work on that skill we've always wanted to. More TV takes it place (carbon and a bit of neon). 

Eventually, if we haven't carefully filtered what comes into our life, we're producing and trying to use iron as a fuel. And iron is not a fuel. Pornography does not provide anything of worth to us as human beings. It's a waste and if we try running our lives on it, we will end up imploding (becoming spiritually dead and morally bankrupt) or exploding (becoming criminally obsessed with sexual stimulation until we're no longer safe to be in society).

A star can't get rid of the iron or other elements it's created, but that's where we're different. We can replace inefficient substances with more efficient ones. Still, it's not enough to just overcome iron. We need to get rid of all the other elements that lead up to it and replace them with the purest, most efficient fuels. Only a pure source of fuel can propel us through all life's pressures. And unlike this analogy, there is upward progression. We can be purified, building ourselves upward "line upon line and precept upon precept."

We need to figure out what things we put into our lives that we justify because they provide "energy" ("I need to play video games when I come home--I've had a stressful day and I need to relax"), ignoring the fact that they can lead to potentially crippling actions that will destroy our ability to overcome life's pressures. We also need to ask ourselves if the things we fill our lives with are wholesome and uplifting enough to provide us with the force we need to resist outward pressures. Today when I met with the bishop and talked about my plans for recovery, he shared a great insight that resonates with what I've been saying. He warned that I not get too caught up with the recovery actions (going to recovery group, checking in, etc.) that I miss the most important question about my actions--"is this something that's going to invite the spirit into my life?" Similarly, the process of purifying our fuel might be as simple as being sensitive to the things that offend or invite the spirit.

In other words, to become the most efficient and powerful "suns" we can be, we need to fill our life with the purest, most efficient fuel there is--The Son. 

(Re)Lapse in Judgement

When I started going to Sexaholics Anonymous about 8 months ago where we used to live, I met a guy named Kyle whom I came to really respect. He had great spiritual/recovery insights, he cared about his health, and he seemed motivated in his recovery (which he had much much more of than me at the time). And he seemed like a legitimately nice, decent human being. Over the space of a few months, though, Kyle seemed to slip from his confident place of recovery and his focus on others. Each week he would talk about how things weren't where they should be for him and his recovery, but each week I was glad to hear him acknowledge where he came up short--that meant he was going to be alright, right?

Eventually, Kyle got to a point where he started having close calls. One week he caught himself in obsessive thinking and fantasy. The next he actually looked at pornographic images. He caught himself before acting out, and I thought, "ok, now he's going to be alright." A few weeks later, though, and his sobriety date went from many months to a few days. What happened? He knew there was a problem. He knew what he needed to do. He seemed so solid, and he even seemed to take his recovery less for granted than I did (I was impressed enough by his recovery that I didn't think he could relapse). Yet even his amazing attitude and knowledge couldn't stand up to a lack of recovery actions.

I feel like Kyle. Not that I have such amazing insights, motivation, and knowledge, but that I've been gradually sliding from a solid period of recovery into a casual, troubled relapse. And I did. I relapsed last week. And not the "technical" relapse of breaking my sobriety definition, but to full acting out and porn (though not porn with sex acts or even full nudity...so I guess that's something).

After it happened I was dumbstruck. I didn't want to relapse! I had several months of recovery! How could this happen? When I look back, though, I see that it took months for me to get to the place where I was capable of relapsing. For the past month I haven't had a support network--my SA friends I would call, my sponsor, my bishop, and even my nightly check-ins with my wife had all gone away when we moved. I figured my conviction that I couldn't do it on my own was all I needed to do it on my own. What!?

And I guess that's not completely true. I confessed to my bishop a few weeks ago, I've been going to the ARP group, and my check-ins with my wife and brother have happened occasionally. Still, as I admitted in my last post, my recovery actions haven't even come close to outnumbering my addiction actions. Duh I'm going to relapse! (Not that that justifies anything.) Recovery programs only work if you work them! If you're not working them...they're not going to work.

So here's what I'm going to do. Actually, let me copy/paste the list I made at the end of my email to my wife that I sent within a few hours of relapsing:

I'm going to ask a few guys ([specific names]) at ARP meeting next week if we can exchange phone numbers and stay in contact throughout the week. 

I want to talk with the bishop again and confess, then ask him if I can stay in contact with him through email every week. 

I'd like to talk with him about getting one-on-one counseling for me. 

Tonight I'm going to call the guy [my former sponsor] tried getting me in contact with, then I'll call [my former sponsor] until I can get daily support from anyone else (I'm sure he will be more than happy to continue working with me). 

We need to have nightly checkins. At the very least, I NEED for us to have nightly checkins. I'd like to make "did you use solo screen time for entertainment today?" a question you ask me or that I address with specifics every single day. I think that was key. Even if the answer is yes, I'll be able to tell you if it was a healthy use or not.

I'd like to have a period of in-marriage celibacy. We can talk about how many months would be appropriate.

I am set to meet with my bishop on Sunday where I'll confess about this relapse and ask about the weekly emails and counseling. I called my former sponsor, though he didn't answer and I didn't call back. I also didn't call the guy he tried to get me in contact with since I know the guy lives 45 minutes away and I have a deeply embedded desire not to bother people (and a hatred of phone calls). Lame, I know. I haven't met with my ARP group since then, but I'm planning on asking for contact information from one of them after the meeting tomorrow. My wife didn't want our in-marriage celibacy to have a set time period, which I can understand. 

I thought of two other items for the list since then: I'm going to do daily self-assessments based on my deposits and withdrawals idea from my Recovery Account post. Then I'm going to (or would like to) email that list to a support person. If anyone wants to volunteer to get daily emails from me, it would be pretty easy! I know you want to! :)  Anyway, I have a person in mind, but we'll see. Also, I'm going to begin officially working on my steps, including writing about them. I'll probably have my brother work through that step work with me. 

I don't really feel like this relapse was starting over. There have already been a number of difficulties that have come from it that I've handled better than before. Only time will tell if I can use this setback to propel myself back onto the Lord's side, but I'm confident I've learned something about recovery that will help me avoid this particular kind of lapse in judgement in the future. 

Our Recovery Account

I'm not in the best way. (Here is where I edited out three paragraphs of dwelling on my difficulties. In short, we moved and I lost contact with recovery support and bishop. Since we've been here I haven't reconstructed my recovery network or contacted the bishop. On top of that, I've reached my max with schooling, teaching, and home fixit issues like leaks/water damage and my son almost melting our microwave...yeah, smoke stench. In all that word vomit, I came up with a comparison of recovery work to a bank account, and that's what I'd rather have this post be about.) 

If recovery is a bank account--recovery acts coming in minus addiction acts going out--I've been slowly headed towards bankruptcy since we moved. For example, after moving I didn't go to recovery meetings for three weeks (in my defense, my wife specifically asked me not to go so I could stay home and help her). Near the end of that time my wife and I had the most serious fight of our marriage. For about three days a cloud of angry silence brooded over the house, and I thought a lot of angry thoughts. I think I've mentioned somewhere about how that resolved, but that's a sign to me that not all is well in my recovery. Also, yesterday was a bad day for my recovery. (Time for honesty...you, blog, will stand in for my sponsor and bishop, won't you? Thanks.) I broke some of my personal rules, some of which were worse than others--rather than working the whole time on school work, I read news articles about Apple's new tech, watched some YouTube videos about video games, and clicked on an image search when it wasn't really essential. Actually...let's keep it really real. It was completely unnecessary to click on, I "accidentally" saw a thumbnail picture with nudity in it, and I should lose my 8 month sobriety date for it.

Back to that after I pursue this idea of the bank account. So the basic idea would be that recovery happens when we have a positive number in our account, and addiction happens when there's a negative number. I like this idea better than just "acting out = not in recovery" and "everything else = recovery." But let me get specific with a table, cuz I'm into that kinda thing:

Deposits to Recovery Account	Withdrawals from Account
Actively avoiding lust hits. Progressive victory over lust.	The reluctant, unavoided, or actively pursued lust hit.
Reaching out to fellow addicts in a moment of weakness.	Unmanaged anger or resentment for real or imagined wrongs.
Participating in recovery meetings.	Spending time or money on selfish wants instead of needs.
Studying addiction recovery materials and work on 12 steps.	Allowing mental fantasies to run wild, whether sexual or not.
Actively engaging in scripture study and prayer.	Using sex with spouse as a release for sexual desires.
Thinking about and serving family members and others.	Justifying inappropriate actions instead of owning them.
Daily checkins with spouse or sponsor.	Acting out sexually.

If I look at it this way, I'm averaging about 2 1/2 out of 7 on the deposits side and 4 out of 7 on the withdrawals side. Yeah. Sinking ship.

So what do I do from here? The first step is this blog post, admitting to myself and others that I'm not "in recovery," including giving up my sobriety date. Secondly, I need to reach out to my wife and start our daily checkins again. Also, I need to strengthen my recovery network: I need to talk with the bishop, exchange phone numbers with other guys in my ARP group, and contact my brother more often. I'm still trying to wrap my head around why I have such a hard time keeping up my scripture study and personal prayer, but I think that needs to be a part of this recovery self-intervention as well. I've been disturbed/upset by things I've read on the WOPA side of the LDS Addiction Recovery Website, so I need to stop checking some of those sites.

Ok. I feel much less disturbed. If I'm being honest with myself, I haven't had consistent progressive victory over lust during the last 8 months anyways. So giving up my recovery date, even though I didn't technically act out, will give me a chance to make the date mean what I want it to mean. And once I start making more recovery "deposits" I'm sure I'll be feeling even better. I encourage anyone reading this to make a personalized list of things that are deposits or withdrawals for you and see how you're doing. I'm planning on encouraging my wife do it. Just putting things in these terms was a pretty big wakeup call. 

The Addict's Reality Distortion Field

In our addiction we do a lot of damage. When we do things we promise we won't do, we turn our back on a lot of people--Jesus and the commandments; our spouse and our covenants; our family and their expectations; ourselves and our sense of integrity. We don't want to turn our back on these people because we love them and want what's best for them. In order to not become the bad guy, we need to justify our disobedience and selfishness, and that's where some mental contortionism comes in. I call it the reality distortion field. (Quick caveat--in case you didn't pick it up from the sketchy name ("isn't a reality distortion field something on Star Trek?") I have no training whatsoever, and I base this post strictly off of my own thinking and things I've heard in support groups.)

The reality distortion field is like a fun house mirror for the way we view the world--every problem that comes our way is bent to take an optimistic, beneficial shape. With this ability I can twist any unfortunate fact that makes me look bad into something that appears to be outside my control or unfair or not as bad as it is. For example, my "addiction to compulsive sexual behavior to deal with my character flaws" was actually only "a small problem with pornography that I'm never going to do again, I promise." Facts about my performance in my parenting, marriage, jobs, etc. have all received a similar whitewashing through the years.

As I've written and rewritten this post, I've come to the conclusion that addicts don't have a monopoly on the reality distortion field. A woman whom everyone thinks is beautiful may consider herself overweight and hideous. A parent who's pressuring their near-tone-deaf child to try out on American Idol may be convinced their child is a musical genius. A person investigating the church may decide it's completely unreasonable in the kinds of behaviors--tithing, standards, weekly meetings, callings, etc.--it requires of them (I experienced this last one a lot on my mission in a Scandinavian country). The common ingredient between all of these--in particular addicts--is pride. Here's how a guy in my support group put it: each of us have a throne inside of us, and either we can sit in it, or we can let God sit in it. And God is a pretty cool guy, because if we want to sit in it, he'll stand aside and say, "No, go ahead. You sit there as long as you want...let me know how that turns out for you." It never turns out well, though we often optimistically tell ourselves it will.

I believe in optimism. "The gospel" is literally "the good news"--if we focus on the gospel, we're focusing on the good news. Faith, including having faith that we can change, is the first principle of the gospel. If we didn't have hope for the future and that things can be better, why would we do anything that we do? However, there's a difference between actual faith linked with a resolve to be and do, versus unrealistic expectations for the future based on overconfidence in our own ability. There's a difference between hope that we can overcome our addiction and become pure through the atonement versus false hope in ourselves coupled with a willful ignorance of how the gospel and repentance works.

False optimism is often the heart of the addict's reality distortion field. I can't tell you how many times I told myself, "this is the last time"...probably every time I acted out. Was it a lie? Not completely--I genuinely thought that the motivation I felt when I committed to be better was going to keep me safe when temptations came along later. Every time I acted out my self disgust was so focused, my resolve so clear, that it looked, in that moment, like finally I had solid ground to base my recovery on. Of course, I was forgetting that I had those same feelings EVERY TIME I had acted out. Why do we forget? Because this is a forgetting disease. Satan's lies or our own twisted brains keep us from realizing that we aren't actually trying anything different to change the outcome, so there's no possible way it will turn out differently. Our pride--sitting on our throne, trying to solve our problems in our way (or asking God to solve our problems in our way)--blinds us to the reality of our situation.

Like the stereotypical used car salesman who only has good things to say about his cars, we develop ways of portraying our situation that minimize our guilt and excuse our behavior. We HAVE to use porn and masturbation to numb our feelings because we're under extra pressure and deserve a break. And if we aren't under extra pressure...it's because we're bored and deserve some excitement. Or it's because we don't get enough love and support at home. And if we DO get enough love and support...it's because we're smothered by too much positivity. Or it's because of our upbringing, or the culture we're in, or ...(ad infinitum).

The reality distortion field is the biggest barrier to recovery for a few reasons:

• Recovery requires hard work. And notice it's called "recovery work." It's not called "recovery thinking" or "recovery talking." When we're in the midst of our own delusions, especially if we have some sobriety, we start to feel like we've got this recovery thing down! Our genuine excitement distorts into a false confidence that we can lighten up. We tell ourselves we're working when we're actually more concerned with seeing what we can get away with as we coast, not with doing whatever it takes--fearless and tireless action--to overcome our addiction.
• It's impossible to recovery without brutal honesty--both with ourselves and others. When we're in a habit of sugarcoating, blame-shifting, whitewashing, qualifying, justifying, backpedaling,  minimizing, and straight-up lying, how could we possibly hope to overcome the problem, let alone even know what it is?
• We can't recover without thorough accountability. The reality distortion field is a defense mechanism, which is inward and isolating: "I don't need help; nothing's wrong and I'm doing fine!" Recovery is outward and open: "I'm out of control, and I can't do this on my own." Recovery necessarily involving others--especially recovering addicts.  They know how to keep us honest since they've told all the same lies.

In this life, we "see through a glass, darkly" (1 Cor 13:12). We don't know the whole context of our actions. Everyone is forced to interpret their perception of reality, in ways that are inevitably inaccurate. However, I'm convinced that with a concerted effort, we can reshape our opinions and attitudes to be less accommodating to our fleshly tendencies and closer to the way things really are. 

Conditional Hobbies

Classical conditioning is a form of acquiring behavior described by Ivan Pavlov in the late 1920s. You've probably heard of his research with his dogs, some food, a bell, and a bunch of slobber. Here's basically how the theory works: A conditioned stimulus (the bell) is paired with an unconditioned stimulus (the taste of food), which results in an unconditioned response (salivating). After repeated pairing, the dogs developed a conditioned response (slobber time) to the conditioned stimulus (the bell) alone...no food involved.

This totally makes sense. Our brains thrive on connections--we finish peoples' sentences, predict the outcome of the big game, and don't even bother trying out that Cinnamon and Liver Ice Cream--because (we think) we know what's coming. The important thing with classical conditioning, though, is that the conditioned response takes a long time and a concerted effort to overcome. The brain has  become rewired to expect or output a certain type of behavior, and reversing that process doesn't happen overnight.

The connection to porn use is pretty straightforward. The conditioned stimulus is the sight of a beautiful woman, the laptop, the bathroom, the whatever; the unconditioned stimulus is physical pleasure; the unconditioned response is the lying, the manipulating, the secrecy, the behavior that makes the pleasure possible. If you think about recovery lingo, the "bell" is a "trigger." What's being triggered? The response that we've conditioned ourself into.

I'm going to take the conditioning one step further. As I've mentioned a few times, I also have an addiction to video games. I don't believe that video games are inherently bad--in fact, I cherish some of the positive memories I have playing video games with my siblings and friends growing up. My concern isn't even that video games can become a way to escape reality. My concern is that video games, for me, became a way to escape the reality of my sex addiction, and they became closely linked. So many times I would try to avoid the guilt from my lust addiction by drowning it in video games. Or I would try to manage and control my other problems with rewards of video games. So now, when I get really into video games...I overdo them and get triggered, even though there's nothing questionable in the games I'm playing.

The point I'm trying to make is that I'm convinced that part of the reason I'm having success in my recovery right now is because I've given up video games, YouTube, TV shows, and news websites (Reddit, CNN) that were acting as my "bells." There are obviously problematic content on any of those things I gave up, but I believe they can be used responsibly...but, for now, they are just too closely connected to my addiction for me to use them responsibly. I don't know if this is a universal thing, but I would challenge anyone who reads this to question behaviors--even perfectly acceptable behavior (though I'd wager not)--that may be a subconscious causal link to your addictions.

I'll end with one of my favorite quotes from David O. McKay (given in 1935): "We sow our thoughts, and we reap our actions; we sow our actions, and we reap our habits; we sow our habits, and we reap our character; we sow our characters, and we reap our destiny." Where we end up in the eternities and at the end of our lives depends on our thoughts. When our brain is rewired by the powerful chemicals involved in porn addiction, our thinking becomes skewed, no longer leading us where we want to go. The big question, then, is are we willing to sacrifice other hobbies that have been contaminated by our addiction in order to straighten out our thinking?

Disturbance

I'm not going to tell you my record for number of years that I've avoided going to the dentist, but I'll let you know that it's somewhere between "a few" and "several." Many of us desperately want to avoid discomfort and pain, even at the expense of healthy habits, healthy relationships, and healthy teeth.

We're like pools of water trying to maintain a calm surface...and life loves throwing rocks at us. Whenever someone we like ignores us, or when we accidentally offend a friend, or when the door handle comes off in our hand, we become disturbed. We have a number of solutions to the ripples that inevitably rock our world--like my approach to dentistry, we avoid things. Sometimes we try to counteract the unpleasantness by lashing out (road rage) or numbing (the entire "Thank Goodness It's Friday" mentality, which is basically code for "now I can try again to numb my problems out of existence").

Life throws rocks into our otherwise peaceful existence.

I've been thinking a lot over the last few months about something my sponsor told me about disturbance:

We become disturbed to the degree that we're broken. 

In other words, if I'm upset about something, it's not the thing I'm upset about that's the problem. The problem is that I have some deficiency or personality flaw. Let me give you an example:

One day I publicly embarrassed a student. She and her friend were on the gym team, and I asked, "does the fact that you're in class and she's not mean that you didn't make the cut and she did?" A dumb thing to say, although I didn't mean it maliciously. She was apparently feeling pretty sensitive about it, and ever after that day she and her friend hated me. I even took them into my office and apologized, explaining my side of it. At the end of the semester I got a surly email from one of them, complaining about her grade. I (believed that I) honestly wanted to help her understand, so I sent an email explaining some piece of wisdom. Then she abandoned all thoughts of not-offending-the-grade-giver, and she let me have it. After I read her email I was SO upset. I felt misunderstood, stereotyped, and unfairly attacked. All her faults and weaknesses made me choke on her words--"She was such a half-hearted, flakey, overconfident, entitled student--what a hypocrite that she would attack me without seeing her own shortcomings!" I struggled for days with a desire to write her back, pointing out all these mean things I was thinking about her. I even wanted to justify it as helping her be a better person ("somebody needs to give her a wake-up call"). I'm glad I let it lie.

I can see now that, yes, all those mean things I thought about her were more or less true. However, I was at fault. I was angry because I felt guilty, prideful, insecure, and hypocritical. It was a bad semester--I was knee deep in a secret addiction to pornography, daily lying (mostly through omission) to my wife. I didn't dedicate enough time to my students because I was drowning in other work, acting out, and numbing my guilt. To some degree I knew she was right--I was a broken and hypocritical person. Even though that's so clear to me now, all I could see were her problems (more on this intentional blindness in a future post--I call it the reality distortion field).

Here's where things get tricky. It's easy to look into the distant past and see mistakes like this, but disturbance is around us all the time. I've found myself getting angry, then remembering this idea that I'm at fault if I'm disturbed. I want to yell--"my kid just drew all over himself with a marker! How am I to blame!?" or "That woman, a member of the church, was super immodest! I didn't want her to dress like that, yet I'm super triggered! How am I to blame!?" This indignation is a bad sign. Doesn't it just feel like I'm trying to force the water to be calm?

Instead of focusing on the "originators" of the disturbance, I need to look at myself: "I just yelled at a three-year old for doing something completely predictable and completely non-permanent; what have I done recently that's causing me to feel like lashing out?" or "I--the messed-up addict--am railing against a woman who in all likelihood doesn't understand and is trying to cope with her own problems; what do I need to do to regain my equilibrium, then strengthen my recovery (which has apparently gotten off track)?"

Here's where I edited out a paragraph that was meant for someone else--someone who is disturbed by something I want to defend, and I wanted to force this person to look at their disturbance as a sign that they should be more concerned with their own personality flaws than with this thing. However, I realize that my reason for putting this paragraph in was to lash out and lecture, not deal with my own disturbance. I write this paragraph to acknowledge that I'm a flawed, disturbed individual who needs to be more concerned with my own personality flaws than with this person. 

The solution isn't to try to move my pond out of the way of the rocks. It's not to yell at the rock thrower. It's not to find a way to create ripples that cancel out ones that are already there. There are times when I can figure out how to deal productively with my problems on my own or with the help of others. With addiction, though, there are so many ripples and counter-ripples there's only one real solution. It's to come to Him who commanded the waters--"peace, be still"--and they were calmed.

Job understood this, and he proved how un-broken he is. All his physical possessions were destroyed, his ten children were killed, and he was rejected by his friends and wife. If that's not disturbance, I don't know what is. Still, he said, "Till I die I won't remove my integrity from me" (Job 27:5) and  "I know that my redeemer liveth, and that he shall stand at the latter day upon the earth. And though after my skin worms destroy this body, yet in my flesh I shall see God" (Job 19:25-26).

That's the kind of pond I want.

Failure is an Event, Not a Person

If recovery is a path with rough, steep sections and smooth, relatively easy parts, I'm pretty sure I'm in a rough, steep part right now. Partly it's because of other pressures (7 days until a move, upcoming teaching, upcoming schooling, family's illness, kid's dental work, car trouble, 4 kids and their propensity for bickering/unhelpfulness/unrequested murals), but partly I'm not sure why. Both me and my wife have been feeling a bit down about our...fill in the blank. Marriage,  parenting, recovery, habits, etc. Basically, I've felt like I'm a failure at this recovery thing. And after my last post, even the sobriety thing is in question. :)

Still, earlier this week I had a tender mercy experience where I got a glimpse of my own recovery.  I went to an ARP meeting for the first time in five months. I've been going regularly to SA meetings during that time, but since I'm moving next week I wanted to go and 1) let everyone there know I didn't just fall off the wagon, and 2) put in a plug for SA, which has been super helpful to my sobriety/recovery. Since I hadn't been in so long, it brought back very clear memories of what I felt like the last time, regardless of all the intervening meetings.

The first time I went to an ARP meeting five-ish months ago, I was slightly nervous, not really sure about what to say, but really impressed with the spirit in the meeting. Sometimes in meetings the last several months I've shared because I feel like I should and that it would be good for me. I end up rambling about random things, then ending awkwardly. Pretty much every meeting I end up feeling that everyone else's share is so much more enlightening and amazing than mine...which I guess is a good thing (I recently heard the advice "stick with the winners.").

It's not only in meetings; throughout the week I'll be trying so hard...then I'll fall flat on my face. I'll come home from a super spiritual, empowering meeting then find myself yelling at my kids. I'll intentionally choose to reach out and call someone in my group, then later find myself making a google image search of an innocuous word, hoping for some kind of immodesty.

Side note: isn't it sad that even with "SafeSearch" on, stuff still comes up? How porn-infused is our culture when almost any word turns up porn? Also, I've since told my sponsor that if I do any Google image search like this I'll consider it a lapse in my sobriety.

Honestly, even the day I went to the meeting I wasn't having that stellar of a day. I'm pretty determined that I'm not going to replace one addiction for another, which has left me grasping for video games, movies, ANY entertainment to escape from my unwillingness to cope with life.

However, I was pleasantly surprised at the meeting that when I shared I felt confident and helpful. I'm pretty sure I rambled, but it seemed like it was from one good thing to another. In any case, it was a clear, powerful feeling, and I feel it was a blessing to have a brief snapshot of the progress of my recovery.

It helps me realize that I may fail a lot, but that doesn't mean I'm a failure. Failure is a thing that happens, not a part of my identity. And not only that, but I HAVE made progress, despite not being able to see it every day.

What is Sobriety?

One of the new terms I've started using since becoming familiar with 12-step programs is "sober"/"sobriety," as in "I've been sexually sober for five and a half months." In my mind it's always been a pretty clear definition; if an alcoholic drinks alcohol they've broken sobriety. If a sex addict has sex (aka orgasm) with self or someone other than spouse, they've broken sobriety. "Sobriety," along with the similar "acting out," seems like a pretty useful measurement when talking about recovery.

However, it isn't as clear-cut as I originally thought. Did you catch the mismatched examples in that last paragraph? One drink of alcohol=sex? I don't think so. It would be more accurate to say one drink of alcohol=one lust hit...but that seems a little unrealistic, right? With immodesty everywhere (especially in hot weather) and lustfulness so widely accepted, surely there must be more to losing sobriety than ogling women in a supermarket?

I recently came across a short SA essay (see what I did there?) entitled, "What is Sex with Self?" It was from someone named Harvey A, who apparently had been sober for 26 years, as of 2010. I'm going to quote from a few paragraphs of it:

"Those people who wonder why they repeatedly relapse might consider that they have never really gotten sober. Yes, they stopped masturbating to orgasm, BUT nothing else changed. Some continued stimulating themselves but not to orgasm. Others continued watching internet pornography and others live in sexual fantasy while letting themselves become aroused. If this isn't 'sex with self,' then what do we call it?...

"What is the solution? Do we itemize each form of sex with ones self? Do we define specifically for each other? Do we merely continue to ignore this problem as a fellowship and just say it is part of progressive victory over lust? No. I do not believe these are the solutions. I believe the solution is in the statement, 'to thine own self be true'....We [discuss with our sponsor, saying] something like this, 'I do such and such behavior to sexually stimulate myself. This is a form of sex with self. If I do this behavior again, I will call it a loss of my sobriety.'"

Progressive victory over lust means we will make mistakes. However, I'm starting to feel that it's easy to stall out and plateau in those victories. It would be nice to just have a checklist of things that are forbidden, but I find myself constantly trying to push whatever boundaries I set for myself. If I really had an attitude of wanting to be true to myself, I would be more sensitive to my own thought processes and desires. Being true to myself is a boundary that resists my desire to push boundaries.

Let me share another way of looking at sobriety that goes along the same lines as what Harvey A. wrote. Here's an excerpt from a personal story in the SA White Book (page 23):

With no more resorting to 'drugs' to avoid the reality of my own emotions, I began to see and feel them. Raw nerve endings of resentment, negativism, anxiety, and fear became exposed. Above all, I think I was afraid of finding out what I was really like on the inside. It wasn't pretty. I discovered that uninsulated by lust, sex, pills, alcohol, or entertainment, I was a very marginal person and would have to begin growing where I had left off at the age of eight. And so the pain began. That's when I saw the truth of another paradox: We have to suffer to get well.

I really have felt those "raw nerve endings" recently. They desperately make me want to numb them with something--video games, ice cream, escapist entertainment, and lusting. It's hard to face my own weaknesses. I wish I could just go on with life. But there aren't any shortcuts in sobriety, and when I find myself trying to avoid the pain, covering it with some kind of medication, that's when I need to question whether I'm actually sober and in recovery. Not only is sobriety not comfortable, but it's painful.

So the next time I'm feeling the lust hunger, I need to work on my reaction. Rather than think about how I can find some loophole and still get lust hits while still maintaining "sobriety," I need to be more in tune with who I am and accept that painful feeling. Will there come a day when I can have sobriety without any pain? I hope so, but for now I need to remember that the pain from not hiding  means I'm sober.



P.S. Last week I wrote about my ultimatum--write in my journal and control my video game use, or face a long-term ban. The first few days of the week things went pretty well--I had solo video game time and used it to increase my productivity. However, I'm sad to say that after those first few days things didn't go very well. I've decided to ban video games for the next four months. I'm going to have to be more specific, but maybe I'll do that in an update to my boundaries. Now that I think of it, I think I'll have to update them anyways when I move in a week and a half (!).